The Digital Hand examines how electronic technologies shape the interpretation of literary handwriting. Engaging manuscripts by Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson alongside contemporary Instagram poetry, Seth Perlow argues that the meaning of a manuscript depends on the equipment used to capture, analyze, and reproduce it.

Moving among literary manuscripts, digital archives, forensic analysis, machine learning, and writing robots, the book considers handwriting as gesture, drawing, signature, and character. It shows how electronics have transformed the study of manuscripts while making the appearance of handwriting an increasingly powerful token of literary quality.

Advance Praise for The Digital Hand

“Written with keen insight and generous clarity, Perlow’s book re-theorizes the handwritten trace for the age of its digital reproducibility.”

— Lisa Gitelman, New York University

“This is a smart and exciting project, which reads like a media archaeology of handwriting as a modern techne. Perlow moves breezily between asemic poetry, Poe’s detective fiction, Derrida, robotic technologies, and the history of text recognition.”

— Whitney Trettien, University of Pennsylvania

“The Digital Hand tells the story of a form of writing we can’t let go of, even now. Perlow works his subjects with accomplished dexterity and a light but expert touch.”

— Matthew Kirschenbaum, University of Virginia